Calmly, Carefully, Completely(46)

“That’s what you get for being a shit this morning,” she says with a smirk. So this is where he gets it from. I like her even more now. She pulls a water gun out from behind her back. She hands it to Gonzo. “Reagan looks like she could use some cooling off, don’t you think?” She winks at me.

Gonzo is suddenly a man on a mission. He hides the gun down by his leg and rolls around to where Reagan is sitting. He stops below her and claps his hands together. She looks down at him, smiles, and says something, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. He grins, pulls out the squirt gun and proceeds to soak her. He doesn’t hit her in the face, but he gets the rest of her pretty well. She puts her hands up to shield herself, and it’s really pretty amusing. Suddenly, his pistol runs out of water, and she climbs down the ladder of her chair. She has a wet towel in her hand, which she proceeds to flick at him until it cracks against his knee.

“Ouch!” I whisper to myself, wincing. But he f*cking loves it. He grins and throws his gun to someone in the pool to fill up. The whole time, she’s chasing him around the edge of the pool with the towel, until her dad has to come and send her back to the stand. Mr. Caster points his finger, and she pretends to pout. Then she flicks him on the ass with the towel too. He turns around, picks her up, and tosses her into the water. She floats to the surface and sputters. Her big, floppy straw hat floats there beside her. And her glasses have sunk to the bottom.

That shit’s funny. I can’t stop laughing. I laugh until my sides ache from it. She looks in my direction and narrows her eyes. She swims over to where I’m still sitting, completely dry. “You’re looking a little too amused, there, Pete,” she says. She fills her mouth with pool water and spits it from between her teeth at my foot. Damn, that’s hot. But, again, I’m a guy. We tend to get a little orally fixated. She could spit a goober and I’d still probably find it sexy.

“What are you going to do about it?” I ask, sitting forward with my elbows on my knees. She looks startled for a second. Then I realize she’s plotting. I can almost smell the gears in her mind burning, they’re working that hard. Gonzo rolls up next to me. They must have warned everyone about Gonzo’s tracheostomy tube because no one tries to get him wet and he’s careful about the edge of the pool. Next thing I know, he’s beside me, and he doesn’t take the same care with me that he took with Reagan. A blast of water hits me in the face.

I put my hands up to block him, but dammit, he’s having so much fun with it that I don’t want to stop him. Instead, I let him squirt until the gun’s empty. Then I blow water from my lips and open my eyes. She’s grinning like hell, and Gonzo’s almost as happy as she is.

“You so deserved that,” she says.

I stand up and point to her. “I’m coming for you, Reagan,” I warn. She squeals and backs away. She looks a little panicky, but then I realize she’s having fun and she’s panicking because I’m going to dunk her rather than because I’m going to touch her.

This shit is like foreplay. The really good kind. I go in the shallow end and stalk her all the way to the rope that sections off the middle of the pool. I want to touch her so badly I can taste it. “Come here, little girl,” I taunt. “Let me show you what happens when you mess with a real man.”

She laughs and ducks under the rope. She comes up smiling, though. I go under and reach for her, and she almost slides right by me, but I grab her at the last second. I slowly and gently pull her against me. We’re so close together that I can feel her heart beating against my chest. She stares into my eyes, and then her gaze drops to my lips and moves back up. “Pete,” she warns. She kicks her feet to stay afloat.